Nothing, dear Jeannie; only half a word to say there is nothing,—the rather as sunday will intervene and a considerable gap in postage. Anne declares herself well today; so that is over. I took new potatoes yesterday; extremely mealy and good; but—but we will not try them for a month to come. Carrots and boiled chicken (for vegetables and meat) are my bower-anchor:1 today we are to try shin soup again.

Anne's Sister, a strange flaring woman all in bluish silks, had rung just at the door yesternight when I arrived there home
from riding: poor old mother2 taken ill of cholera-complaints (not Asiatic) whh are very common here;—I will hope, she is mending, poor old creature, in the cool weather that has now come.— Yesternight
Nero and I walked an hour and a half,—vehemently;—but you see what the potatoes are up to!3— In riding time, I called on Brigr Mackenzie; unluckily did find him!—talking with great emphasis on Indian matters, writing (privately) in the Daily News; but no ansr as to an appointt there yet.4 Tongue cannot speak the horrors that were done on the English,—especially on the poor women,—by those mutinous hyaenas. Allow hyaenas to mutiny; and strange things will follow!5 It is a thot of mine many British Interests besides India are on a baddish road of late!6— — Today I was just finishing a Book (or section of my subject,—thank God!)—I could have done it really, so near was I; but preferred writing Goody this scratch. Tomorrow will be a heavy day with Proofs. Printers are getting on. Courage!— — Nero is lying on the sofa (garret here) “Hchuc! hchuc! are we not going out then Sir?”
Hardly my friend! Geraldine has never had him out again. Four strikes.7 Adieu Dearest; and thanks for the good news. A long Letter on Monday I hope? Ever / T. Carlyle

3. Unexplained; this phrase is at the beginning of a page, so possibly a page is missing.

4. Helen Mackenzie wrote to JWC, 21 July: “My husband has volunteered to throw his sick Certificate into the fire & and go out at once if Govt will give him power of being of any use—but we have as yet no answer.” TC notes at the beginning of her letter: “This from
a ‘Brigadier Mackenzie's' wife (a Douglas; deaf; had, or has since written Life in the Zenanah (? some such name)”; a revised edn. of Helen Mackenzie's Life in the Mission, the Camp and the Zenáná (1853), pbd. as Six Years in India (1857), was advertised in the Athenaeum,8 Aug., as pbd. this day.

5. By the end of July, the Times and other newspapers had pbd. several eyewitness accounts describing the two days of rioting in Delhi, where, before proclaiming
Bahadur Shah (1775–1862) as Mogul king, army and civilian rebels had set about killing all Europeans, including women and children.

6. Britain was still engaged in the continuing war with China; see TC to JCA, 5 March. The Times, warmly supporting the British merchants in China, warned against French interference in British plans for expansion: “We
have been injured, our flag insulted, our Plenipotentiary refused justice and our fellow citizens shot, strangled and poisoned
by a set of barbarians and their chiefs. … Should the occupation of Chuan, or any point on the mainland, conduce to the attainment
of the objects of war, we see no reason why it should not be occupied” (8 July).